Film Comment's End of Year Critics' Poll 2008

Welcome to Film Comment’s ninth annual critics’ poll. (It wasn’t broke, so we didn’t fix it.) Just as in years past, a small army of colleagues ranked their favorites in two categories: 1) those released theatrically, and 2) those that made their debuts elsewhere—which generally means on the festival circuit. Once again, the selection committee of the New York Film Festival, now in its 46th year, proved to be either cultural weather vane or tastemaker: 10 of the top 20 theatrical films, and 10 of the 20 undistributed titles, made their big-league debuts courtesy of the NYFF. A 100-plus chorus of critics responded with votes that spanned nearly 500 films. For each ballot, a first-place choice was allotted 20 points, 19 for second, and so on.